The frame 10 of an industrial shell and tube-type of heat exchanger typically mainly comprises two transversally oriented opposite end tube sheets 12, 14 and a plurality of intervening transversally oriented baffles 16 spaced in a series along the longitudinal distance between the opposite end tube sheets. In a heat exchanger where the frame is about twenty or thirty feet long typically may have fifteen or more baffles. Each baffle typically has a missing perimetrical segment or other main opening 18. Adjacent baffles have regularly related but non-coincident relative angular orientations, e.g. with adjacent baffles having their missing sectors or other main openings diametrically opposed.
The transverse elements 12, 14, 16 have a set of corresponding located openings, e.g. except where a baffle is missing a corresponding segment. A respective tie bar 20 is projected axially through each series of corresponding axially aligned tube sheet openings 22 and baffle openings 24, being slipped through appropriate-length spacers 26 in between each two adjoining baffles or tube sheet and baffle.
Generally a plurality of these longitudinal rods are provided with regular angular spacing near the outer peripheral margin of the tube sheets and baffles.
At one end, each tie bar is tightened against the outer face of the respective tube sheet using a fastener 28 and at the other end, each tie bar is tightened against the last baffle using a fastener 28, to create a generally structured framework for supporting the tubes of the tube bundle of the heat exchanger.
To that end, the tube sheets and baffles, further to the openings provided for receiving the respective tie rods, typically have a great plurality of openings 30 arranged in like regular grid patterns. For each hole 30 through one tube sheet, either there is an axially aligned hole 30 through each succeeding baffle, or that hole is coincident with a missing sector or other main opening 18 through that baffle, and there is an axially aligned hole 30 through the opposite tube sheet.
In large industrial shell and tube type heat exchangers, each tube sheet may have several thousand holes 30 through it, all arranged in a regular grid pattern.
In tubing a heat exchanger frame, it is necessary to longitudinally telescopically insert each tube into the frame through a corresponding series of axially aligned holes, starting through one tube sheet. Heretofore as known to the inventor, this job has been one which took two or more workers a great deal of time.
The present invention has to do with apparatus and a method for inserting the tubes into a heat exchanger frame with increased efficiency and productivity.